15 May 2014

OK time for a photo

This was taken around 46 degrees south, on the track out of Lyttelton. We had decided to swing south of the Chatham Islands to pick up the westerly winds around a high system that was stationary a bit east of the Chathams, and one night we ended up completely becalmed, and still becalmed well into the next day (we actually sat hove to overnight to motor the next day.

In the morning I was woken up by the on watch crew saying "come up and look at this, it's amazing". There were 20 or so albatrosses sitting in the water all around us, some quite close and some further away. This little fellow was quite inquisitive and swam up to the boat for a closer look:

Oh, and when I say "little", I don't really mean it. I mean sort of about the size of a small family car, with wings. Watching a few of them land and take off was pretty impressive, they spend about a minute folding and unfolding their wings.

This is a shot of a few of them around the back of Chiara Stella, swimming along quite curiously:

Clearly the word had gotten out that there was a large red bird sitting in the water, and so a few more arrived to enjoy the view: